Monday, April 30, 2012

One of my favorite nail bloggers hands down is Sarah at Chalkboard Nails. She is always spot on in her awesomeness. One of my other favorite things in life is Leopard Print. So it was no wonder when I saw this mani she did, that I would want to re-create it!

Totally awesome perfection, right? I only hope I can do it justice.

I kinda think I did ok. I approve anyway!

I used a base coat of Kleancolor Melon Green since I knew the next polish would be a streaky bastard. Boy was I right. I had to use 4 additional coats of China Glaze Celtic Sun...that polish is a streaky disaster. Pretty, but a nightmare. It was STILL streaky after a base and 4 coats, but since I knew I was covering a large portion of it, I struggled on.

The grey is China Glaze Pelican Grey (oops here, I meant to use Recycle, but in the end I grabbed the wrong bottle...glad I did though, I think the darker grey would not have looked as good) and Fingerpaints Black Expressionism.

A coat of Gelous and Out the Door to finish, because I had some bumps from the many layers of polish and I like a good smooth surface when I dot or tape! So there you have it!

Sunday, April 29, 2012

The lades in the AIS group decided to switch things up this weekend and do a stamping based on Queens Day - I think it's great to celebrate other countries' holidays, I always like to learn about these things personally.

Here is some wiki info on this holiday:

Koninginnedag or Queen's Day is a national holiday in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Celebrated on 30 April (the 29th if the 30th falls on a Sunday), Koninginnedag is QueenBeatrix's official birthday. Though Queen Beatrix was born on 31 January, the holiday is observed on 30 April as it was the birthday of her mother and predecessor, Juliana. Many of the traditional activities are held outside, and observing the holiday in April makes suitable weather more likely.

The holiday was first observed on 31 August 1885 as Prinsessedag or Princess's Day, the fifth birthday of Princess Wilhelmina, heiress to the Dutch throne. On her accession, the holiday acquired its present name, Koninginnedag. When held on 31 August the holiday was the final day of school summer vacation, leading to its popularity among children. Following the accession of Wilhelmina's daughter Queen Juliana in 1948, the holiday was moved to her birthday. Her daughter, Beatrix retained the celebration on 30 April after she took the throne in 1980. Beatrix altered her mother's custom of receiving a floral parade near a royal palace, instead choosing to visit different Dutch towns each year and join in the festivities. In 2009, the Queen was carrying out this custom in the town of Apeldoorn when a car was driven into a crowd surrounding the royal family's vehicle; seven people in the crowd were killed, and the car's driver also died soon afterwards.

Koninginnedag is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt ("free market" or flea market), at which many Dutch sell their secondhand items. It is also an opportunity for "orange madness" or oranjegekte, for the national colour, when the normally straight-laced Dutch let down their hair,often dyed orange for the occasion.

Now, on to the nails!

For this look I did a multi-layered nail with a stamp on top.

Started with a marbled nail using the saran wrap technique and Orly You're Blushing with Fingerpaints Black Expressionism. Wish I'd have shot this part first as it was a pretty cool marble look, a little too much black though!

Then I stamped a crown on the thumb and a damask/wallpaper type design on the other fingers. In hindsight I should have done this look in orange based on the Queens Day description, but I kinda was thinking of skipping this challenge until the last minute and I was already in a different color scheme!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

This one holds all of my Indie polishes, my failed attempts at frankening, my euro polishes and some of my higher end polishes.

Lets get right to it, this baby is packed with pics!

Here is the drawer. After taking pics of all of these, I am surprised it isn't fuller. Then again, last time I looked it was half this full! No idea why that little plastic box in the back has a $ sign on it!

Most of the polishes in this drawer may only be 1 or 2 of a brand. So there's lots of pics!

I love these bottles, and the polishes. I need more. I wish I'd been into polish when I worked next door to an AA store!

Butter London. It's getting there...most BL's dont wow me for their price tag, it has to be pretty special for me to drop more than $12 on a polish. But it does happen!

Wallis, Henley Regatta, Tart With a Heart, The Black Knight and Trout Pout.

Catrice! I owe my lovely new friend Angi a huge thanks for picking these up time and time again for me. If I could get these locally I'm pretty sure they would be the most collected of my stash, hands down.

Currently 16 Catrice Polishes.

Cosmetic Arts - never even heard of these until I found them in a Ross store and I loved the neon-ness of them! These don't have names on the bottles, sorry.

The first bottle is Fatty's Got More Blood but it's in a Fuck Off & Dye bottle (my good friend Taylor gave me this for Xmas, I think they mislabeled some bottles and gave her freebies, so thats what this is, a bastard)

And last but certainly not least, my Whimsicals. Whimsical Ideas by Pam is an Indie Polish I found out about a few months back on MUA. I'm sure if you've been around here much at all, you have seen numerous swatches of her polishes on my chunky fingers! She is awesome and she is blowing up so fast, I am so happy for her huge success, she deserves it, these polishes are REALLY good quality and unique. You can find a link to her FB page on my sidebar--->

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Trying to keep my posts to early morning once a day, but sometimes you just gotta break the rules!

So...for the past 2 weeks I've been super sick. First I had some terrible teeth issues and then I came down with what I am now dubbing the A-Z Disease, because it literally feels like I have been hit with every disease known to man all rolled into one. And it STILL hasn't gone away!

So it comes as no surprise that when this awesome package arrived today I was over the moon.

In one of the FB groups I frequent I met this awesome lady named Angi, and this has now been our second swap. She lives in Germany, I live in the US, so we have fun sending each other polishes we can't get!

She is just the awesomest, I love talking to her and I love getting her adorable little goodies in the mail.

Look at all the pretties!!! Oh me oh my!!

Fruity fimos!! Lip balms! (So addicted to lip balms)

I wonder what's in that adorable little cupcake tin!?

Its awesome rhinestones! Heart shaped ones too! <3 Swoon!

And Fruity's! OMG I have been wanting these so much the past week!!

An awesome Essence duo! Love these colors!!!

And of course, the purpose of our swap - Catrice Million Styles Collection!! SCORE!!

It's a line from the movie Dodgeball...almost every time I hear the word Laser, I think of White (Ben Stillers character) introducing his team of misfits. I can never get enough of slapsticky comedies like Dodgeball.

My version used Kleancolor Melon Green as the base and then Color Club Revvvolution on top. After doing this I am in desperate needy realization that I need more duochromes! I have like 3 and I didn't like any of them for this mani!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Like my singing? I know! It's time for Teal Tuesday. This week we voted on Circles. So many ideas I had...but in the end, I did this, which was a last minute idea I just went with on the fly.

Its Black Expressionism by Fingerpaints, Metallic Jungle by Kleancolor and Konad White for the stamping. Pink striping tape I picked up on eBay and 2 coats of Seche.

If you are interested in participating in Teal Tuesdays, just drop me a line in the comments with your blog address so I can add you to the participating blog list. And there is also a FB Group! Please join in the conversation!

Monday, April 23, 2012

I apologize in advance that I had every intention of doing the "Homage Month" that was going around Tumblr at the beginning of the month. Unfortunately I lost my computer and had issues getting pics uploaded and next thing I knew the month was more than half over and it was not worth it. Lo and behold, some of the exceptional ladies at the Purple Crumpet Fairy group had devised Monkey See Monkey Do Mondays, which is essentially the same thing, only done once a week! I love it!